Monday, May 23, 2011

HEB Best Sellers, Spring 2011

ACLS Humanities E-Book has just reported and paid its 17th round of royalties to more than 80 publishers and 170 individuals or their literary estates. This represents the results of nearly 6 million hits on the site over the past year. Once again, HEB presents its top-ten hit titles in the collection, which now has over 3,000 titles.

Attention focused on cultural studies, world history, nationalism, gender and urbanism. Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso) remained in first place. Perennial bestseller Anne McClintock’s Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (Routledge) moved from second to third place, while John W. Dower's War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (Pantheon) up to second place. 

University presses accounted for four of the ten titles, with one each from Stanford University Press, Harvard University Press, NYU Press and Oxford University Press.

Verso had two books in the top ten with City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles joining Imagined CommunitiesIn addition to Verso, commercial presses in the top ten included Pantheon, Routledge, Beacon and Basic Books.


Considering the changing nature of humanitistic scholarship, it is interesting to note that many of these titles are older works and classic works in their fields. For example, Imagined Communities is a revised edition (2006) of a work originally published in 1983 and Peasants into Frenchman: The Modernization of Rural France was published in 1976.

And here’s the list:






  1. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 2006)
  2. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (Pantheon, 1993)
  3. McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (Routledge, 1995)
  4. Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York University Press, 2006)
  5. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early American (Harvard University Press, 2003)
  6. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914 (Stanford University Press, 1976)
  7. Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Beacon Press, 1957)
  8. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (Basic Books, 1973)
  9. Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (Oxford University Press, 1990)
  10. Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (Verso, 2006)